The University The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is forging dramatic new directions in higher education. UTEP has become a national model for creating and successfully executing highly competitive academic and research programs while maintaining a deep commitment to serving a 21st century student demographic. It is this dedication to providing access and excellence to students in the region that has resulted in UTEP becoming a top tier research university with a Mexican-American majority student population. UTEP officially opened in the fall of 1914 and is the second oldest institution in The University of Texas System (www.utsystem.edu). Today, it enrolls more than 25,000 students and is designated an R1 university (very high research activity) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, one of only 130 (4.5%) among the 2,883 four-year higher education institutions across the U.S. UTEP serves its primary constituency — residents of far west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico — with 74 bachelor’s degree programs, 74 master’s programs and 22 doctoral programs, including a growing portfolio of online degrees. With an 80% Hispanic student population, UTEP proudly reflects the demographic composition of the bi-national region from which it draws the vast majority of its students. Eighty-three percent of students are from El Paso County and 4 percent are Mexican nationals.